La Salle University - Explorer Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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Mr. George Walter. Director of Financial Aid 47

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. : • • Student Affairs Administration Mr. Frank Bertucci. Sports Information Director 46

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A Life ' s Journey to La Salle By Chris Combs If you look through his wallet, you ' ll find only two credit cards (he ' s shred- ded all the rest). One is a Mastercara. The other is an American Express Card. You may know him. He is Ronald C. Di- ment. (Catherine Dunworth liked this open- ing, despite its attempt for a cheap pseudo-laugh, and since I like Cather- ine, I decided to keep it. But this is about neither a wallet nor Catherine.) Affectionately known on official Resi- dent Life Office memoranda as Ronald C. Diment, Ron has ably served as the Director of Resident Life at La Salle since 1979. Ron is a complex charac- ter, not easily described or under- stood. To those how don ' t know him well he seems like a relatively simple ana easygoing man, but those who do know him realize that he is a deep person with many different sides. Perhaps there is no better way to under- stand such a person as Ron than to examine his humble beginnings. The man is a derivative of his own tale. Ron was born in Boston, but he and his family moved to Philadel- phia when Ron was five years old. As a small child Ron remembers belonging to a gang, the 55th Street Gang, which spent most of its time competing against oth- er street gangs in street sports like stickball, rather than engaging in terrorist-type activities. Ron was a good kid, and showed remarkable ma- turity in separating himself from this loose conglomeration of adolescents at age thirteen. Not so coincidentally, his family also moved to Havertown at this time. Scholastically, he attended a private school, Friends Central, through high school where he captained the baseball, basketball, and soccer teams. Describing himself at that time as the thinking man ' s jock, Ron was voted Outstanding Athlete of his senior class. In reviewing his childhood, it is readily apparent that Ron was ex- posed to a myriad of ethnic and cultur- al practices, giving him a strong base of understanaing for his destined job at La Salle. Ron moved on to attend Lafayette College, for which he aamits he was ill- prepared. When I first went to col- lege, I was clueless ... as clueless as the most clueless person on your floor, Ron fondly reminisces. Placed in a five- year dual B.A. B.S. degree program, Ron finished his first semester with a G.P.A. of 1.30. Not one to ignore bla- tant omens, Ron quickly switched to a four year B. A. program, majoring in psy- chology. Again, he was active athleti- cally, participating on the soccer and baseball teams, and he even served as a Resident Assistant his junior year. So- cially, Ron was a member of the Phi Del- ta Theta fraternity, which had a repu- Ron Diment tation as an Animal House before National Lampoon, and at first was the kina of guy who tossed guys in their un- derwear out of fourteenth story dormi- tory windows. Later, in further develop- ing as his own person, Ron once again cut his ties with a group, this time leav- ing the fraternity after his junior year when student concerns focused much more upon social ana political issues than on social groups. Ron graduated in 1971. With a low araft lottery number, Ron was very nearly conscripted into the armed forces. However, he remained on his life ' s march to La Salle when he failed his draft physical. Before he could be redrafted, Ron scampered off to Penn State where he received his Mas- ters degree in Counseling College Stu- dent Development. While there he acted as a Resident Director. Noting that he was tired of being a student, Ron fled, oddly enough, to Southside Virginia Community College for his first job, as a counselor. Southside was a rural school which served ten counties. For his first year there, Ron lived in a room atop the town ' s general store, whose proprietor was a man named Abel Bottoms. The towns peo- ple immediately labeled Ron the man who lives on top of Bottoms. Unsatis- fied with these conditions, Ron moved out onto a farm for his remaining four years at Southside. It was great. I lived with a family ... I fell in love with a hog, Ron recalls, hastening to add, I got to work with the animals in keeping up the place. His final stop prior to La Salle was at Saint Andrew ' s Pres- byterian College in Lavrinberg, NC, where he was appointed As- sistant Dean of Students and gained valuable experience as the school ' s director of housing. Ron remained there for two years. In June of 1979, Ron finally ar- rived as Director of Resident Life at La Salle. For the first three months of this job he occupied La Salle Apartment D4, while some students were to be placed in houses on Olney Avenue and Twentieth Street. Ron ' s first chal- lenge presented itself when he appeared before the city ' s zon- ing board and was greeted by a busload of neighborhood people protesting that students were in these houses. In light of the enor- mous opposition and being unpre- pared for this demonstration of neigh- borhood solidarity, the students were moved to Ron ' s apartment and Ron moved into the house along Olney Avenue, where he ' s been ever since. He purchased the house from the school two years later. Since then things have gone much more smoothly for this old pro. The high- lights are many, the lowlights few, and some of the memories are as vivid to- day as when they first occurred. There was the time the huge sign was stolen from the corner of Twentieth and Ol- ney during Senior Week, which is part of the reason why there no longer is a Senior Week. There was the George Bush, the shrub outside the hall during